84-447: RWF may refer to: Rainer Werner Fassbinder , German film director Rassemblement Wallonie-France , a minor Belgian political party Royal Welch Fusiliers , a British Army regiment Rwandan franc , in ISO 4217 code, a currency Royal Agricultural Winter Fair , Toronto, often abbreviated to Royal Winter Fair Republic of West Florida ,
168-425: A German to English translator. When she was working, she often sent her son to the cinema to pass time. Later in life, Fassbinder claimed that he saw at least one film a day, sometimes as many as four per day. During this period, Pempeit was often away from her son for long periods while she recuperated from tuberculosis . In his mother's absence, Fassbinder was looked after by his mother's tenants and friends. As he
252-624: A Year of 13 Moons (1978), and Querelle (1982), all of which dealt with homoerotic themes. He also directed the TV series World on a Wire (1973) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). Fassbinder died on 10 June 1982, at age 37, from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates . His career lasted less than two decades, but he was extremely prolific; between 1967 and 1982, he completed over 40 feature films, 24 plays, two television serials, three short films, and four video productions, winning five of
336-508: A blond wig, Petra drinks heavily and waits for Karin to call. Her daughter, Gaby, arrives. Petra tells her little; Gaby says she has fallen in love with a young man, but that it is unrequited. Sidonie appears with a birthday present: a doll with blond hair like Karin's. She mentions that Karin is in Bremen. Petra's mother, Valerie, arrives. Petra accuses her of being a whore who never worked, living off first her husband and then Petra. Petra tramples on
420-738: A car accident while she was pregnant; her second marriage ended in disgust. Petra lives with Marlene, another designer, whom she treats as a slave. Marlene wakes Petra. She begins her day and gets dressed while Marlene attends to her. Petra makes a phone call to her mother, makes demands of Marlene (including slow-dancing), and dons a brown wig just before her cousin Sidonie visits. Petra talks to Sidonie about their marriages while Marlene works and acts as hostess. Sidonie's friend Karin Thimm joins them. Newly returned to Germany after residing in Sydney for five years, Karin
504-850: A china tea service and smashes glasses against the wall. Previously unaware of Karin, Valerie is shocked that Petra is in love with a woman. Petra says she hates Gaby and never wants to see Sidonie again, but Gaby stays. Later that night, Petra lies in bed without a wig. Valerie tells her that Gaby cried herself to sleep. Petra apologizes to her mother, and says she did not love Karin but merely wanted to possess her. Karin calls, and Petra amicably declines to see her before she leaves for Paris, suggesting that perhaps they will meet again sometime. Petra turns to Marlene after her mother has left and apologizes for treating her badly. She promises that all will be different between them and that she will share her life with her. Marlene, who has satisfied her masochistic desire in submitting to Petra, packs her belongings, including
588-409: A dozen or so scenes, most of which are either theatrical tableaux where there is no movement of the characters and the camera darts from speaker to speaker or are shots where characters pace back and forth while giving revolutionary speeches about Marxist struggles and debates on economic theories. Set in 1876, Whity centers on the title character, a mulatto who works as the obsequious servant in
672-559: A familiar name among cinephiles and campus audiences throughout the world. He lived in Munich when not traveling, rented a house in Paris with ex-wife Ingrid Caven. He was often seen in gay bars in New York, earning him cult hero status, but also a controversial reputation in and out of his films. His films were a fixture in art houses of the time after he became internationally known with Ali: Fear Eats
756-404: A guest worker from Greece, leads to a growing curiosity on the part of the women and the antagonism among the men living in a suburban block of apartments in Munich. This kind of social criticism, featuring alienated characters unable to escape the forces of oppression, is a constant throughout Fassbinder's oeuvre. Katzelmacher was adapted from Fassbinder's first produced play – a short piece that
840-501: A happy childhood and came from a home where the good things in life were always stressed, while Karin's father was a toolmaker and she always felt neglected by her parents. Petra loved mathematics at school, but Karin could never understand algebra. Petra has a daughter she rarely sees, but she reassures herself that her daughter is at the best possible boarding school. Karin's parents are dead. She says people reject her when they learn her history, but Petra says that her affection for Karin
924-409: A married couple who are fruit sellers. Hans faces rejection from his family after he violently assaults his wife for not bending to his will. She leaves him, but after he suffers a heart attack they reunite, though he now has to employ other men. His restricted ability to function leads him to ponder his own futility. He literally drinks himself to death. The Merchant of Four Seasons uses melodrama as
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#17328523924381008-413: A number of undesirables. Eventually he ends up killing the girlfriend of one of the policemen with his friend Franz Walsh (Fassbinder). The film closes with the music of the song "So much tenderness", written by Fassbinder and sung by Gunther Kaufmann. The American Soldier is the third and final installment of Fassbinder's loose trilogy of gangster pictures formed by Love Is Colder Than Death and Gods of
1092-542: A pistol, in a small suitcase and leaves, taking the doll as she walks away. Solitude, love, and codependency are key themes explored in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. The solitary setting of Petra's bedroom maximizes the dramatic tension while mirroring her entrapment. The items in Petra's room and the positioning of the camera relative to the reproduction of Midas and Bacchus are manipulated to reflect and comment on
1176-612: A power struggle of deception and betrayal. The story centers on Hanni, a precocious 14-year-old schoolgirl who starts a relationship with Franz, a 19-year-old worker in a chicken processing plant. Their romance faces the opposition of the girl's conservative parents. Franz is sentenced to nine months in prison for having sex with a minor. When he is released on probation, they continue their relationship and Hanni becomes pregnant. Afraid of her father's anger, she persuades Franz to kill him. When Franz returns to prison for this murder, Hanni tells him that their child died at birth and that their love
1260-454: A red wig, is getting dressed, while Karin is in bed reading a magazine. Petra cancels a flight reservation to Madrid for the two of them over the telephone. Karin says Marlene is strange, but Petra says Marlene loves her. Upon Petra's insistent questioning, Karin says that she slept with an African-American soldier the previous night. Freddy, Karin's husband, telephones from Zurich; it emerges that they have been in contact by letter, and that Karin
1344-419: A remount of a fictional play, Maloja Snake , about an intergenerational lesbian relationship. The film's director, Olivier Assayas , acknowledged a link between The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Maloja Snake . Peter Strickland has cited The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant as a major influence on his 2015 film The Duke of Burgundy . In 2022, director François Ozon released Peter von Kant ,
1428-567: A self-conscious and assertive formalism . Influenced by Jean-Luc Godard , Jean-Marie Straub and the theories of Bertolt Brecht , these films are austere and minimalist in style. Although praised by many critics, they proved too demanding and inaccessible for a mass audience. Fassbinder's rapid working methods had begun by this stage. Shot in black and white with a shoestring budget in April 1969, Fassbinder's first feature-length film, Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) ( Liebe ist kälter als der Tod ),
1512-652: A short-lived republic Rail Wheel Factory , Bangalore, India San José–Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility , a wastewater treatment plant in San Jose, California Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title RWF . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RWF&oldid=1038328251 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1596-405: A small number of them. Working with a regular ensemble of actors and technicians, he was able to complete films ahead of schedule and often under budget and thus compete successfully for government subsidies. He worked fast, typically omitting rehearsals and going with the first take. Fassbinder's first ten films (1969–1971) were said to be an extension of his work in the theater, shot usually with
1680-424: A stalled production, temperamental actors, and a frustrated crew. When asked what the movie he is making is about, he replies: "brutality." The film ends with a typical Fassbinder-esque irony, as the crew gang up on the director. Beware of a Holy Whore marked the end of Fassbinder's avant-garde period. It presented such an embittered and radical self-critique that his future films would have to be quite different from
1764-480: A static camera and with deliberately unnaturalistic dialogue. In 1971 through 1977, his films brought him international attention, with films modeled, to ironic effect, on the melodramas Douglas Sirk made in Hollywood in the 1950s. In these films, Fassbinder explored how deep-rooted prejudices about race, sex, sexual orientation , politics and class are inherent in society, while also tackling his trademark subject of
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#17328523924381848-516: A style to create critical studies of contemporary German life for a general audience. It was Fassbinder's first effort to create what he declared he aspired to: a cinematic statement of the human condition that would transcend national boundaries as the films of Michelangelo Antonioni , Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini had done. It is also his first realization of what he learned from Sirk: that people, however small they may be, and their emotions, however insignificant they may seem, could be big on
1932-673: A teen, Fassbinder was sent to boarding school . His time there was marred by his repeated escape attempts, and he eventually left school before any final examinations. At the age of 15, he moved to Cologne with his father. Though they argued constantly, Fassbinder stayed with his father for a couple of years while attending night school . To earn money, he worked small jobs ; he also helped his father, who rented apartments to migrant workers . During this time, Fassbinder began to immerse himself in his father's world of culture, writing poems, short plays, and stories. In 1963, aged 18, Fassbinder returned to Munich with plans to attend night school with
2016-452: A toll on him. A visit by a woman neighbor occasions the incident that gives the film its title. Irritated by the incessant chat between his wife and her friend while he tries to watch TV, Herr Raab kills the neighbor with a blow to the head with a candle stick and then kills both his wife and their son. Herr Raab is later found hanged in an office restroom. The main theme of the gangster film The American Soldier (Der Amerikanische Soldat)
2100-401: A wealthy family, in exchange for leading roles. Fassbinder acted in both of these films, which also featured Irm Hermann . In the latter, his mother – under the name of Lilo Pempeit – played the first of many parts in her son's films. At age 22, Fassbinder joined the now defunct Munich Action-Theater in 1967; there, he was active as actor, director and scriptwriter. After two months he became
2184-497: Is a 1972 West German psychological romantic drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , based on his play of the same name. Featuring an all-female cast, the film takes place entirely in the home of fashion designer Petra von Kant ( Margit Carstensen ), following the changing dynamics in her relationships with other women. The film was entered into the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival . It
2268-425: Is a fashion designer who lives in a self-created dreamland and the action is restricted mostly to her lavish bedroom. After the failure of her second marriage, Petra falls hopelessly and obsessively in love with Karin, a cunning young working-class woman who wants a career in modeling. The model's exploitation of Petra mirrors Petra's extraordinary psychological abuse of her silent assistant, Marlene. Fassbinder portrays
2352-526: Is an attractive but shallow 23-year-old woman. Immediately attracted to Karin, Petra suggests she become a model. Karin agrees to return the following day. The next day, with Marlene showing signs of frustration, Petra, wearing a larger, dark wig, offers to support Karin while she trains to be a model. Petra learns that Karin is married (her husband has remained in Sydney) but is only momentarily put off by this revelation. The women discuss their differences. Petra had
2436-563: Is best remembered for a scene unrelated to the plot, as the girlfriend, played by Schygulla, dances to Elvis Presley 's " Jailhouse Rock " on the jukebox in the company of an oafish leather-jacketed youth, played by Fassbinder. Pioneers in Ingolstadt (Pioniere in Ingolstadt) was adapted from an eponymous play by Marieluise Fleißer written in 1927. It follows two young women whose lives are transformed when army engineers (the pioneers of
2520-411: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Rainer Werner Fassbinder Rainer Werner Fassbinder ( German: [ˈʁaɪnɐ ˈvɛʁnɐ ˈfasbɪndɐ] ; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder , was a German filmmaker, dramatist and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of
2604-407: Is even stronger after learning about her past. Petra orders Marlene to get a bottle of Sekt . Karin reveals how her parents died: her father was laid off because of his age, killed his wife, and then hanged himself in a drunken stupor. Karin feels she has drifted in life; her husband treated her like a slave and offered no reprieve from her past. Petra says this is about to change. Marlene returns with
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2688-451: Is regarded by many as Fassbinder's magnum opus and a classic of New German Cinema . Petra von Kant is a prominent fashion designer based in Bremen . The film is almost totally restricted to her apartment's bedroom, decorated by a huge reproduction of Nicolas Poussin 's Midas and Bacchus . Petra's marriages have ended in death or divorce. Her first husband, Pierre, her great love, died in
2772-409: Is rejoining him. Petra calls her a "rotten little whore", and Karin responds that being with her is less strenuous than working the streets. She asks Petra to book a flight to Frankfurt, where she is to meet her husband, and asks for 500 marks ; Petra gives her 1,000. A drunken Petra has Marlene drive Karin to the airport. On Petra's birthday, the bedroom is almost empty. Lying on the floor and wearing
2856-432: Is that violence is an expression of frustrated love. A sudden frenzied outburst of repressed passion, the revelation of desire and a need for love that has been thwarted and comes too late is central here. The eponymous hit man of the title (actually a German, played by Karl Scheydt) is a cold-blooded contract killer, who returns from Vietnam to his native Munich, where he is hired by three renegade policemen to do away with
2940-511: The New German Cinema movement. Versatile and prolific, his over 40 films span a variety of genres, most frequently blending elements of Hollywood melodrama with social criticism and avant-garde techniques. His films, according to him, explored "the exploitability of feelings". His work was deeply rooted in post-war German culture: the aftermath of Nazism , the German economic miracle , and
3024-472: The bourgeoisie . His father concentrated on his career , which he saw as a means to inspire his passion for writing poetry . His mother largely ignored him as well, spending the majority of her time with her husband working on his career. In 1951, Liselotte Pempeit and Helmut Fassbinder divorced. Helmut moved to Cologne while Liselotte raised her son as a single parent in Munich. To support herself and her child, Pempeit took in boarders and found employment as
3108-412: The 1950s: All That Heaven Allows , Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life . Fassbinder was attracted to these films not only because of their entertainment value, but also for their depiction of various kinds of repression and exploitation. Fassbinder scored his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons ( Händler der vier Jahreszeiten , 1971). The film portrays
3192-504: The 1990s, when it began to be screened; now, like almost all of Fassbinder's films, it is available on DVD . A whimsical comedy, Rio das Mortes follows two young men without prospects who try to raise money to realize their dream of finding a buried treasure in Peru using a map of the Rio das Mortes . The girlfriend of one of them finds the notion stupid and wants to put a stop to it, but eventually
3276-459: The Anti-Theater under Fassbinder's direction . The troupe lived and performed together. This close-knit group of young actors included among them Fassbinder, Peer Raben , Harry Baer and Kurt Raab , who along with Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann became the most important members of his cinematic stock company. Working with the Anti-Theater, Fassbinder continued writing, directing and acting. In
3360-609: The Plague . It pays homage to the Hollywood gangster genre, and also alludes to Southern Gothic race narratives. In The Niklashausen Journey [ de ] ( Die Niklashauser Fahrt ), Fassbinder co-writes and co-directs with Michael Fengler. This avant-garde film, commissioned by the WDR television network, was shot in May 1970 and it was broadcast in October the same year. The Niklashausen Journey
3444-545: The Soul (1974), both of which are considered masterpieces by contemporary critics. Big-budget projects such as Despair (1978), Lili Marleen and Lola (both 1981) followed. His greatest success came with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), chronicling the rise and fall of a German woman in the wake of World War II . Other notable films include the lesbian chamber drama The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975), Satan's Brew (1976), In
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3528-447: The Soul . In 1977, he was a member of the jury at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival . Starting at the age of 21, Fassbinder made forty-four films and television dramas in 15 years, along with directing 15 plays for the theatre. These films were largely written or adapted for the screen by Fassbinder. He was also art director on most of the early films, editor or co-editor on many of them (often credited as Franz Walsh, though
3612-480: The Westerns made by Sergio Leone . Its production was particularly traumatic for cast and crew. Whity , a mixture of Euro-western and American South melodrama, was badly received by the critics and became Fassbinder's biggest flop. The film was neither picked up for theatrical release, nor was there interest for broadcasting it on television. As a result, Whity was only seen as its premiere. It remained unavailable until
3696-407: The action. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , the film holds an 84% approval rating from 31 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "A thoughtful drama that grows even more powerful in retrospect, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant sensitively depicts a woman's tortured search for connection." The text of the play, in its English translation by Denis Calandra, was employed by Gerald Barry as
3780-430: The aforementioned responsibilities, Fassbinder served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor. He also appeared in 30 projects of other directors. By 1976, Fassbinder had gained international prominence, prizes at major film festivals , premieres and retrospectives in Paris, New York and Los Angeles, and a study of his work by Tony Rayns had been published. All these factors helped make him
3864-458: The bottle of Sekt and silently returns to her typing as Petra and Karin toast. Petra promises to make Karin a great model; Marlene stops typing and glares at Petra. Petra says that life is predestined, people are brutal and hard, and everyone is replaceable. Discovering that Karin is staying at a hotel, she suggests she move in with her. Petra admits to being in love with Karin, but Karin can only say she likes Petra. About six months later, Petra, in
3948-454: The bourgeois milieu with his trilogy about women in post- fascist Germany: The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), The Angst of Veronica Voss and Lola . "I would like to build a house with my films", Fassbinder once remarked. "Some are the cellars, others the walls, still others the windows. But I hope in the end it will be a house." Fassbinder's work as a filmmaker was honored in the 2007 exhibition Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz , which
4032-623: The contraculture movement and the protests of 1968 . Fassbinder did not clarify the time frame of the action, mixing medieval elements (including some costumes, settings, speech and music) with those from other time periods, like the Russian Revolution, the Rococo period, postwar Germany and the Third World . The Niklashausen Journey , influenced by Jean-Luc Godard 's Weekend and Glauber Rocha 's Antonio das Mortes , consists of only about
4116-531: The cover up behind a computer capable of creating an artificial world with units living as human beings unaware that their world is just a computer projection. Made in contemporary Paris, the film was stylistically inspired by Jean-Luc Godard 's Alphaville (1965) and in its theme of artificial humans wanting to reach real life anticipated Ridley Scott 's Blade Runner (1982). The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant ( German : Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant )
4200-430: The director's films. The last of the four films Fassbinder shot in 1969, was his first in color, Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (Warum läuft Herr R. Amok?) . It was co-directed by Michael Fengler (the friend who had been his cameraman on the short film The Little Chaos in 1967). Only the outlines of the scenes were sketched by Fassbinder. Fengler and the cast then improvised the dialogue. Fassbinder asserted that this
4284-526: The efforts of his career as film director , but maintained an intermittent foothold in the theater until his death. He worked in various productions throughout Germany and made a number of radio plays in the early 1970s. In 1974 at age 29, Fassbinder took directorial control over the Theater am Turm (TAT) of Frankfurt; when this project ended in failure and controversy, Fassbinder became less interested in theater. In honor of Rosa von Praunheim , Fassbinder staged
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#17328523924384368-496: The everyday fascism of family life and friendship. The final films, from around 1977 until his death, were more varied, with international actors sometimes used and the stock company disbanded, although the casts of some films were still filled with Fassbinder regulars. He became increasingly idiosyncratic in terms of plot, form and subject matter in movies like The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), The Third Generation (1979) and Querelle (1982). He also articulated his themes in
4452-525: The government grants needed to continue making films. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema, Volker Schlöndorff , Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders , who started out making movies, Fassbinder's stage background was evident throughout his work. Additionally, he learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theater management. This versatility surfaced in his films too where, in addition to some of
4536-538: The idea to eventually study drama . Following his mother's advice, he took acting lessons and from 1964 to 1966 attended the Fridl-Leonhard Studio for actors in Munich. There, he met Hanna Schygulla , who would become one of his most important actors. During this time, aged 20, he made his first 8mm short films , worked as a sound man in student films and as an assistant director or in small acting roles in theatre . During this period, he also wrote
4620-533: The libretto for his five-act opera, commissioned by RTÉ and English National Opera and premiered in Dublin and London in 2005. The opera is also available on CD featuring the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is considered a landmark of European cinema that secured Fassbinder's status as a respected auteur. The 2014 film Clouds of Sils Maria revolves around
4704-518: The lives of his family. In compliance with his mother's wishes, Fassbinder later claimed he was born on 31 May 1946, to more clearly establish himself as a child of the post-war period ; his real age was revealed shortly before his death. He was the only child of Liselotte Pempeit (1922–93), a translator , and Helmut Fassbinder, a doctor who worked from the couple's apartment in Sendlinger Straße , near Munich 's red light district . When he
4788-551: The longing for companionship and love, and the fear and reality of betrayal. Fassbinder's second film, Katzelmacher (1969), (Bavarian pejorative slang term for a foreign worker from the Mediterranean), was received more positively, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim . It features a group of rootless and bored young couples who spend much of their time in idle chatter, empty boasting, drinking, playing cards, intriguing or simply sitting around. The arrival of Jorgos,
4872-546: The mansion of a dysfunctional family in the American South. He is the illegitimate son of the family patriarch and the black cook. Whity tries to carry out all their orders, however demeaning until several of the family members ask him to kill some of the others. He eventually kills them all and runs away to the desert with a prostitute from the local bar. The film was shot in Almeria , Spain , in widescreen, on locations built for
4956-553: The most prestigious prizes for feature film in Germany, including the Golden Bear and multiple German Film Awards . His premature death is often considered the end of the New German Cinema timeframe. Fassbinder was born in the small town of Bad Wörishofen on 31 May 1945. He was born three weeks after US Army occupied the town and the unconditional surrender of Germany . The aftermath of World War II deeply marked his childhood and
5040-500: The movie screen. Loneliness is a common theme in Fassbinder's work, together with the idea that power becomes a determining factor in all human relationships. His characters yearn for love, but seem condemned to exert an often violent control over those around them. A good example is The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant ( Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant , 1972) which was adapted by Fassbinder from his plays. The title character
5124-475: The ones made before. After spinning out ten films in not much more than a year (this film was shot only a few months after Whity ) in a frenzied burst of creativity, his anti-film anti-theater drive seemed to conclude. After Pioneers in Ingolstadt , Fassbinder took an eight-month break from filmmaking. During this time, he turned for a model to Hollywood melodrama, particularly the films German émigré Douglas Sirk made in Hollywood for Universal-International in
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#17328523924385208-444: The parties, and midway through the project Fassbinder lost interest in it. The film suffered as a consequence, and it ranks among Fassbinder's weakest films. The tensions and bitterness that had surrounded the making of Whity led Fassbinder to dismantle the collective project of the Anti-Theater as a production company. Instead, he founded his own production company: Tango films. Pioneers in Ingolstadt , although broadcast before
5292-479: The play Dedicated to Rosa von Praunheim . Fassbinder used his theatrical work as a springboard for making films; and many of the Anti-Theater actors and crew worked with him throughout his entire career (for instance, he made 20 films each with actresses Hanna Schygulla and Irm Herrmann). He was strongly influenced by Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) and the French New Wave cinema, particularly
5376-480: The shootout, but Franz and Joanna escape. Love Is Colder Than Death is a low key film with muted tone, long sequences, non-naturalistic acting and little dialogue. Success was not immediate. Love Is Colder Than Death was ill-received at its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival . The film, however, already displays the themes that were to remain present through the director's subsequent work: loneliness,
5460-585: The slow meltdown of these relationships as inevitable, and his actresses (there are no men in the film) move in a slow, trance-like way that hints at a vast world of longing beneath the beautiful, brittle surface. Jail Bait [ de ] ( Wildwechsel , 1972), also known as Wild Game , is a bleak story of teenage angst, set in industrial northern Germany during the 1950s. As in many other of his films, Fassbinder analyses lower middle class life with characters who, unable to articulate their feelings, bury them in inane phrases and violent acts. Love turns into
5544-414: The space of 18 months he directed 12 plays. Of these 12 plays, four were written by Fassbinder; he rewrote five others. The style of his stage directing closely resembled that of his early films, a mixture of choreographed movement and static poses, taking its cues from musicals, cabaret, films and the student protest movement. After he made his earliest feature films at age 24 in 1969, Fassbinder centered
5628-450: The spelling varies), and he acted in 19 of his own films as well as for other directors. He wrote 14 plays, created new versions of six classical plays, and directed or co-directed 25 stage plays. He wrote and directed four radio plays and wrote song lyrics. In addition, he wrote 33 screenplays and collaborated with other screenwriters on 13 more. On top of this, he occasionally performed many other roles such as cinematographer and producer on
5712-557: The terror of the Red Army Faction . He worked with a company of actors and technicians who frequently appeared in his projects. Fassbinder began leading the acting troupe Anti-Theater in 1967, with whom he staged some of his earliest productions. His first feature-length film was a gangster movie called Love Is Colder Than Death (1969); he scored his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) and his first international success with Ali: Fear Eats
5796-471: The theatre's leader. In April 1968, now 23, he directed the production of his play Katzelmacher , which tells the story of a foreign worker from Greece who becomes the object of intense racial , sexual , and political hatred among a group of Bavarian "slackers". A few weeks later, in May 1968, the Action-Theater was disbanded after its theater was wrecked by one of its founders. It promptly reformed as
5880-436: The theatrical release of Beware of a Holy Whore , was the last film made by Fassbinder during his formative period. In the following year, 1971, Fassbinder shot only one film: The Merchant of Four Seasons . Beware of a Holy Whore was based, like many of Fassbinder's films, on a personal experience – the shooting of his earlier film, the revisionist western Whity (1970). The film shows an egomaniacal director, beset by
5964-564: The title) arrive to their town to build a bridge. One of the women flirts from soldier to soldier, but her friend falls in love only to be abandoned. Shot in November 1970, Pioneers in Ingolstaldt was commissioned for television. Fassbinder wanted to bring the plot from the 1920s to contemporary Germany, but the producers, fearing to offend the German army, refused. A compromise did not satisfy any of
6048-733: The tragic-comic play: Drops on Hot Stones . To gain entry to the Berlin Film School , Fassbinder submitted a film version of his play Parallels . He also entered several 8 mm films including This Night (now considered lost ), but he was turned down for admission, as were Werner Schroeter and Rosa von Praunheim who would also have careers as film directors. He returned to Munich where he continued with his writing. He also made two short films, The City Tramp ( Der Stadtstreicher , 1966) and The Little Chaos ( Das Kleine Chaos , 1967). Shot in black and white , they were financed by Fassbinder's lover, Christoph Roser, an aspiring actor from
6132-513: The two friends find a patroness to finance their adventure. Based on an idea by Volker Schlondorff , Rio das Mortes was shot in January 1970 following Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? , but was broadcast on television a year later in February 1971. The film feels casually constructed; the humor is bland and the plot has been criticized for its sloppiness and poor character development. Rio das Mortes
6216-485: The works of Jean-Luc Godard . He also praised The Damned (1969) by Luchino Visconti his favorite movie. Other filmmakers who influenced Fassbinder included Howard Hawks , Michael Curtiz , Raoul Walsh , and Nicholas Ray . Fassbinder developed his rapid working methods early. Because he knew his actors and technicians so well, Fassbinder was able to complete as many as four or five films per year on extremely low budgets. This allowed him to compete successfully for
6300-455: The wrong crowd. He teams up with his best friend, a black Bavarian criminal who killed his brother, to raid a supermarket. Both men are betrayed by Franz's jilted lover Joanna who tips off the police. Franz is killed, and the film ends at his laconic funeral. Similar in plot and characters to both Love is Colder than Death (1969) and The American Soldier (1970), Gods of the Plague ' s theme of homoerotic love would reappear repeatedly in
6384-448: Was "only physical". Originally made for German television, Jail Bait was based on a play by Franz Xaver Kroetz , who violently disagreed with Fassbinder's adaptation, calling it pornographic. The luridness of its theme furthered the controversy. His only science fiction film , World on a Wire ( Welt am Draht , 1973), was a departure for Fassbinder. An adaptation of the pulp sci-fi novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye , it
6468-460: Was a deconstruction of the American gangster films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Fassbinder plays the lead role of Franz, a small-time pimp who is torn between his mistress Joanna, a sex worker played by Hanna Schygulla, and his friend Bruno, a gangster sent after Franz by the syndicate that he has refused to join. Joanna informs the police of a bank robbery the two men have planned. Bruno is killed in
6552-399: Was expanded from forty minutes to feature length, moving the action from a country village to Munich and delaying the appearance of Jorgos. Gods of the Plague ( Götter der Pest ) is a bleak gangster film with a winter setting, shot mostly indoors and at night. The character of Franz (from Fassbinder's first film, but now played by Harry Baer ) is released from prison, but falls back with
6636-492: Was loosely based on the real-life of Hans Boehm , a shepherd who in 1476 claimed that the Virgin Mary called him to foment an uprising against the church and upper classes. Despite a temporary success, Boehm's followers were eventually massacred and he was burned at the stake. Fassbinder's intention was to show how and why revolutions fail. His approach was to compare the political and sexual turmoil of feudal Germany with that of
6720-433: Was made as a two-part, 205-minute production for television using 16mm film stock during a hiatus from the lengthy production of Effi Briest and in the same year as Martha and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul . A story of realities within realities, World on a Wire follows a researcher, working at the institute of cybernetics and future science, who begins to investigate the mysterious death of his mentor. He falls deep into
6804-420: Was often left alone, he became used to the independence and thus, became a juvenile delinquent . He clashed with his mother's younger lover Siegfried, who lived with them when Fassbinder was around eight or nine years old. He had a similar difficult relationship with the much older journalist Wolff Eder (c.1905–71), who became his stepfather in 1959. Early in his adolescence, Fassbinder came out as bisexual. As
6888-524: Was organized by Klaus Biesenbach at the Museum of Contemporary Art together with Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art , Berlin. For his exhibition at MoMA, Klaus Biesenbach received the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) award. Working simultaneously in theater and film, Fassbinder created his own style from a fusion of the two artforms. His ten early films are characterized by
6972-408: Was really Fengler's work rather than his. Nevertheless, the two were jointly given a directorial award for the project in the 1971 German Film prize competition, and Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? has always been considered among Fassbinder's films. Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? portrays the life of Herr Raab, a technical draughtsman married and with a small child. The pressures of middle-class life take
7056-523: Was three months old, he was left with a paternal uncle and aunt in the country, since his parents feared he would not survive the winter with them. He was one year old when he was returned to his parents in Munich. Fassbinder's mother came from the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk , Poland ), whence many Germans had fled following World War II. As a result, a number of her relatives came to live with them in Munich. Fassbinder's parents were cultured members of
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